White Serenade
by Frozenleaf
Summary: Sometimes, you forget the pain you left behind. But when the Imperial Army killed Elucifer that day, they forgot to finish the job. And it is in the hands of this forgotten person that the fate of the world slowly spins into the unforgiving night.


I wasn't planning on writing this, but because of a certain person who shall-not-be-named, the plot bunnies attacked and this fic sprung into existence.

Disclaimer: Do not own.

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><p><strong><span>Prologue<span>**

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Once upon a time, Canon noticed that something was wrong. A small change in the way the story went, a minute tweak in the system that would inevitably lead to a new story altogether. A small ripple that would slowly envelop everything that made Canon what it was, distorting it to some unfamiliar image that could only make a reader cry, "WHY, O GREAT DEITY OF CANON,_ WHY_?"

Canon paused for a moment, hearing the impasioned pleas of its worshippers, and shrugged- at least it wasn't a High School AU.

And somewhere else, in a distant corner of the world, a young author began attacking her keyboard viciously, unaware of the fact that hers was the only light left in the street and that she had school tomorrow and it was already 3 a.m. in the morning. Discarded cans of caffeinated drinks lay strewn about her room, mixed in with a bunch of Tales of Vesperia merchandise, and her only company was that of a curious lizard watching her from the ceiling.

She didn't care. She was making a _masterpiece_. One that was so awesome that it would make the entire fandom quiver in fear and awe, one that would begin her career as an aspiring artiste!

And so, her story started with a woman lay dying in a pool of her own blood in the middle of a now-quiet battlefield.

To be fair, any knight knew that every battle could be their last. But Casey, with her whole life in front of her, had never expected her death to come here and now, as she lay staring up into the blue, cloudless sky above Mt. Temza. It was a beautiful scene, at least, until you looked around and saw the dead and broken bodies of fallen soldiers scattered all along the mountain path. The once-lush foliage and marble buildings that lined the mountain now lay broken and burning from the Imperial Knight's cannons, and even though the battle had long been over, you could still hear the cries of the dying echoing ominously through the mountain.

It was just her luck that she had tried to sneak up to get a perfect vantage point to fire her bow, far away from the rest of the Imperial forces. Just her luck that she had been struck down by a watchful Krityan spearman before she managed to fill his body with arrows. Just her luck, that, even as she watched his body collapse over the ledge, her legs gave way and she realized she couldn't move- poison. And atop her rocky outcrop, there was no way for her to crawl back down. And the wound inflicted, big and gashing, allowed her blood to slowly pour away while she couldn't move.

Just her luck that she was so far away that nobody could hear her cries for help.

Casey squeezed her eyes shut. At first, she had tried to think her way out of this, but even she, a trained Imperial Knight, could not find her way down the treacherous path using only her arms. And any attempt at communication had been answered only with silence. To be honest, she wasn't sure whether she was lucky or not that the first wound didn't kill her- at least then, her death would be swift and almost painless, instead of rotting away, well-aware of her eventual death, under the hot desert sun.

She hoped that someone would rescue her. Schwann, maybe. Or Yeager. Hell, she would even be happy if it was a Krityan or an entelexeia by this point. Someone, anyone who could swoop in and make the pain go away.

She had lain there, unmoving, as even the distant sound of battle finally ground to a halt, and as the hours passed and her vision started to blur, she knew she wasn't going to last much longer.

And then a sound- the tumbling of a rock. At first she thought it was merely the wind, but the crumbling sound continued, and suddenly, Casey could make out the silhouette of someone leaning over her. And though she was close to the brink of passing out, she could make out glowing, crystal eyes staring at her.

And then a tinkling, melodic voice spoke. She- there was no way such a voice could belong to a male, not even a prepubescent choir boy- said something that Casey couldn't make out, and although Casey tried to respond, her voice failed her and all that she managed was a weak whimper.

The figure knelt down beside her, and through her pain and blurred vision, Casey managed to make out pointed ears and something like a tail trailing behind her. A Krityan? She closed her eyes and let out a relieved sigh. So that was her fate, was it? Compared to the hell of dying slowly, at least a quick hit would grant her peace.

She felt the woman's fingers probing the wound she received; cool, light fingers touching where flesh parted. She saw the crystal eyes glance at her once more, and she fully expected the finishing blow to come- but instead, a gentle warmth ebbed its way into her flesh, energy suddenly flowing through her once tired limbs. It was refreshing, and comforting, and suddenly Casey realized she could move her toes again.

She glanced up in awe and surprise- healing was no easy skill to master- and now, she could make out the woman's features. She was no Krityan, that was for sure- with soft, shiny brown hair the colour of oak pooling around her pale shoulders and no antennae to speak of. No, Casey realized, the woman didn't have an antennae. She had a tail. A big, bushy, squirrel tail. And two squirrel ears sitting above her pointed ones. And she was probably the most beautiful woman that Casey had ever met.

"W-who are you?" she choked, scrambling away from her mysterious saviour; stopping only when she realized she was about to fall off a very high cliff.

"Easy now," the woman said, pulling her back with one hand. "You almost died. You should be more careful in the future."

"I almost died because we're in a damn war!" Casey bit back, snatching away her arm. "You're not- you're not human, are you?"

The woman smiled simply, that simple gesture making her face seem even more angelic than it originally was. "No, silly. I'm an entelexeia."

"You're an entelexeia!" Casey screamed. "You're an enemy- _my _enemy! And I'm yours! I'm part of the Imperial Knights! Why the hell did you save me?"

The woman frowned. "I- I'm not taking any sides in this war. I just wanted to help people, just like my brother."

"Your brother?" Casey's mind raced as she thought about what that meant. "You don't mean- Elucifer? The entelexeia that's fighting alongside Duke?"

"That's right," the woman said, ominously cheery in the middle of the battlefield. "My name is Elucyfia, but you can just call me Cyfia for short."

"Why not Lucy?" Casey muttered, her mind still trying to recover from all she had learned.

"Cyfia sounds nicer," her saviour replied with a careless shrug, her tail swishing behind her.

Casey nodded dumbly. "That's nice. And thanks for all your help, but shouldn't we get back now...?"

"I suppose," Cyfia murmured. "Do you need help getting down those rocks? Your wounds are just healed, after all."

Casey waved her help away. She may have been almost-dying just five minutes ago, but she was sure as hell not going to let herself be carried around like an invalid. Not even if one misstep could cause her to topple to her doom.

She managed to descend the sheer cliff after half an hour of careful poking or so, but when she glanced up, Cyfia was still sitting there, watching her.

"Aren't you coming down?" Something told Casey she did not want to have any more contact with strange, multi-eared, squirrel-tailed people, even if they were entelexeia, but something else told her she shouldn't take her eyes off the mysterious young woman either.

Cyfia shrugged, and started climbing down the cliff- head first. Somehow, she managed to maintain grip of every nook and cranny she found, descending the cliff in less than a minute. Her dexterity was amazing, Casey thought, and she was the one who trained for years on end to use a bow. If entelexeias were all as powerful as the squirrel-woman, it was small wonder why the Imperial army had such a hard time fighting them.

"Let's go," Cyfia said cheerily as soon as she dusted off her silken skirt- which was another thing Casey was wondering about. Who wore a silken skirt out in the middle of a battlefield? And how in the world did she manage to keep the bloodstains off? This Cyfia woman looked like she was dressed for bed- with her white flowing dress- not a battle, and she didn't even have a weapon in hand.

_Don't think about it, Casey, _her inner voice advised, having already detected that plot was slowly underway. _It'd only give you headaches._

They barely made it past the next outcrop of rocks when suddenly, a horrendous roar ripped through the air. The shockwave of the sound slammed into the two women, forcing them to crouch close to the ground, and it was soon followed by another one, before a piercing shriek pretty much killed off Casey's ears.

Casey had thought the battle was over. Casey had thought she was going to die. Casey was getting quite annoyed at being wrong.

And then, Cyfia let out a piercing shriek of her own, clasping her hands over her mouth before her melodious voice gasped dramatically, "Elucifer!"

"That's your brother?" Casey glanced at Cyfia. "What the hell is going on?"

"I don't know!" Cyfia shook her head desperately, her brown hair somehow rippling around like water. Even in such a desperate situation, Casey couldn't help but admire how Cyfia's shampoo was way better than her own. Her scraggly, knight-version-cut crop of blonde hair didn't sparkle in the sunlight like that.

But this was clearly not the place to think of such matters. "Come on," Casey said through gritted teeth, grabbing hold of Cyfia's hand and tugging the entelexeia through the rocky canyon.

They found an overlook, and then Casey could only watch helplessly as the scene unfolded before them.

Standing down in the plains below, a hundred knights surrounding him, the vicious black dragon that Casey knew only as the entelexeia Elucifer screeched in fury. She could see several ropes had been thrown over his big, black wings, pinning him down to the ground, and even though the entelexeia's swipes were strong enough to kill anyone who wandered into his range, he was hopelessly outnumbered by the Imperial Knights.

"Brother!" Cyfia gasped in fear, and she would have lunged forward too- and toppled another twenty or thirty feet into the ground below- but something told Casey she shouldn't let Cyfia go in there, not yet.

Elucifer screeched, and over the sound of the battle, Casey made out the words, "You betrayed me!"

She gaped in a mixture of fear and awe, and glancing about, she saw the Commandant, Alexei, standing nearby, watching the entire occurence while sipping a cup of tea like it was a spectator sport. Casey frowned- only really evil or really classy people drank tea. And standing at the very front of the knights, a young man with bleached hair and a much cooler outfit than the rest of the knights was waving frantically at the dragon, as if he were trying to calm him down.

"Duke," she remembered his name.

"What are they doing?" Cyfia asked despairingly.

Casey shook her head. She didn't know. What was this? The Army was supposed to fight entelexeia, so that they wouldn't ruin human lives, but _this..._

And then suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the charging light of a cannon. "Oh no."

The words barely came out of her mouth when a beam of light blasted through the canyon, slamming straight into Elucifer's heart. She saw it all in slow motion- the dragon rising in a final attempt to free himself, the blast striking straight through him like he was but a pinned insect, and then his slow, final collapse onto the ground.

And then she heard Cyfia sceam. And then she saw a blur of brown and white zip past her in an attempt to jump down a thirty-foot drop.

"No!" she pulled the young woman back out of some instinct. "They'll kill you if you go near!"

"I don't care!" Cyfia roared in a voice that sounded like it could shatter glass, one hand stretching out towards the dead body of her brother. "They killed my brother! _Killed _him! Just like I'll kill them all! Especially that no-good best friend of his, Duke!"

"You're outnumbered and outgunned, lady," Casey snapped back, yanking her backwards until they were far enough from the knight's camp so that they wouldn't find them. "I don't care if you're an entelexeia, you won't stand a chance if they get you just like they got your brother!"

The four-eared woman screeched obscenities at her for a while, but Casey didn't really care. This woman saved her life, and she owed her a debt, whether she liked it or not. And what she had witnessed- the fact that the Imperial Army betrayed one of their own allies- made her feel queasy and uncomfortable. Enough for her to know that she had to drag Cyfia out of there as soon as possible.

The entelexeia was soon reduced to sobbing hysterically while clinging at Casey's worn and tattered and blood-soaked cape, but as least she had given up charging back at the Imperial Army.

They moved quietly for a while, the bright sun slowly descending beyond the horizon, the only sound in the empty wasteland being the calls of the crows and Cyfia's own, miserable hiccups. And once in a while, though, Casey could only wonder just how the hell did the entelexeia manage to look as though she was some beautiful angel descended from the heavens even when she was crying. Where normal women would have red noses and runny noses, Cyfia's own tears seemed to make her look even prettier, much to Casey's envy.

Casey swore she would stop drinking. It was the only reasonable explanation she had for everything that had just happened. Maybe it was all just a bad dream. A very bad dream. Maybe she would wake up back in Zaphias tomorrow, where her company commander would then yell at her for drinking too much.

And then she, as well as her hopeful wishes, ground to a halt. Because lying before her in an incredibly unbelievable scene of carnage which seemed like it was almost written by someone who either had a flair for the dramatic or just enjoyed to cause her pain, with thirteen stab wounds and a Krityan lance through his torso, was none other than Yeager himself. Schwann lay impaled nearby, with what looked like Yeager's scythe sticking out of his heart. Now, Casey wasn't some weak damsel-in-distress that was about to weep over two guys she had a sorta-crush on who were obviously dead, even if she did feel breathless and slightly woozy with the need to throw up.

"Damn bastards," she swore.

"D-did you know him?" Cyfia asked softly, her beautiful crystal eyes staring seemingly into Casey's soul.

Casey nodded, uncertain as to what to say.

"They killed him, just like they killed my brother," Cyfia continued, somehow speaking comprehensibly again after crying for almost three hours straight. "Even though we've only just met, I feel as though I can understand what you're going through."

Casey eyed Cyfia as though she sprouted an extra head. "You don't even know my name," she pointed out.

"Oh, well, that's true," the entelexeia muttered, "but bonds of kinship do not need to be defined by names! As far as I know, you're the only person left that I can trust!"

Casey gaped. Partially because she was standing in front of the body of dead guys she was sorta-in-love-with, partially because she was just stunned by the squirrel-woman. Also partially because her own need for grief was now slowly being overwritten by the realization that well, she was running away from the Army with a squirrel entelexeia woman.

Slowly, Casey glanced at the woman who saved her, who was now saying that _she _was pretty much the only person she had left in the world. And Casey's mind, finally working after her near-death experience, started to realize that _that _meant that she was pretty much the only person keeping Cyfia out of certain and complete doom. Seriously, if the Empire knew that Elucifer had a sister, they'd be chasing her down too, right?

"Well, uh, my name is Casey," the archer said awkwardly, patting Cyfia on the back.

"I'm so glad you're with me, Casey," Cyfia sniffled. "I... I don't know what to do without my brother. One day, I shall find that horrible Duke and make him feel the depth of the pain of his treachery! But until then, it eases my sorrow to know that I have a kindred spirit who I can rely on, to ease the burden of wandering this dark world alone."

"That's... really great and all," Casey said, trying not to let her annoyance at Cyfia's theatrics show. "But we should probably escape right now. Before the army realizes you're here. Do you happen to have a map?"

"A map? Why do we need that?"

"To find the closest town. You do realize we're in the middle of a desert, right?"

"Ah, well... can't we just walk using the stars as our guides?"

Casey groaned and rubbed her temples. This was going to be a long night.

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><p>Read and Review please! Concrit welcome!<p> 


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